Film Review — "Messiah of Evil" (1973)
Thanks to Messiah of Evil, I know what Carnival of Souls would have been under George Romero. Director William Huyck and uncredited co-director Gloria Katz engender a nightmarish atmosphere of dread and alienation to tell this story of a young woman named Arletty Lang who travels to a peculiar west coast hamlet in search of her father who has vanished… Point Dune, California is a seaside village of artists, like Artletty’s father, and it’s under the control of an ominous presence. And that presence is felt throughout. Owing to the hazy photography and the unearthly synth score, the film has an unsettling ambiance so perpetual that it becomes unclear whether Arletty is trying to eschew the forces of evil or if she’s actively pursuing them.
A cult of undead-ish people, followers of a shadowy figure known as the Dark Stranger, are steadily taking over Point Dune. These otherwise pretty well-to-do looking folks, dressed as if they’ve just come from church, are mindless fiends who crave raw meat and bodily fluids. Not exactly zombies and not exactly vampires, these ghouls don’t seem to care if tonight’s menu consists of human, cow, or rat. They, like the zombies in Romero pictures, are the result of “our American way” being an ironic pox on its own citizens. The war in Vietnam, the civil rights struggle, the Watergate scandal, and the rampant consumerism that led to the deifying of soulless corporations are just a few of the issues causing America to be at odds with itself throughout the 1960s and well into the 70s.
The seldom-seen Dark Stranger, as the leader of this brainless horde, is presented as an otherworldly quasi-preacher, which I’m sure was intentional. By the early 1970s, the charismatic Billy Graham had already solidified himself as “America’s pastor.” From Harry S Truman to Barack Obama, he functioned as a spiritual counsel to the President of the United States. Just think about that. For roughly 60 years, Graham had his voice in the ear of a dozen consecutive presidents, starting in the 1950s. At the time of this film’s production, political evangelism was on the rise, and the real-life horrors that would materialize from it were only just emerging. To be honest, these bloodthirsty revenants aren’t a far-cry from the pious acolytes you might see on a local TV station’s early-morning worship service programming. Only these freaks take communion to another level.
The perfectly cast Elisha Cook Jr. tries to warn them. Cook plays Charlie, the wine-sloshed town kook (cannot relate!). He’s only in a single exposition-dump scene, but he nails it. Of course he does, because once upon a time character actor extraordinaire Elisha Cook Jr. was an important figure to fledgling spooky kid me: One sleepless night when I was about 7-years-old, I watched him star alongside Vincent Price in William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill on Turner Classic Movies and it was game over, bitch, game over. And since then I’ve greatly enjoyed his performances in genre flicks such as Rosemary’s Baby, The Maltese Falcon, Born to Kill, The Big Sleep, and ’Salem’s Lot. Here in Messiah of Evil, he’s a bit of a one-scene wonder, but what a compelling scene it is—cut off when a posh hedonist named Thom dismisses Charlie back into the night.
Speaking of Thom… I swear, Christopher Lee and Alan Cumming fucked! Because how else would we have Michael Greer? A singer and comedian well-known for his uncanny impersonations, he was one of the first openly gay actors to star in major film productions, but due to the homophobia of 1960/70s Hollywood, Greer had few opportunity to grace the screen. In Messiah of Evil, he plays Thom, a collector of stories whom I absolutely wish were around today so he could host a spooky podcast. I also wouldn’t mind being one of his groupies, partially because Toni and Laura get the two best moments—so wipe the tears of blood from your eyes and keep ’em peeled for the scenes set in a supermarket and a cinema. Earlier in the film, Thom and the ladies have to vacate their motel room, and they crash at Artletty’s father’s house, where the group finds Mr. Lang’s diary detailing the fishy goings-on in Point Dune prior to his disappearance.
The audience is cued in on the town’s threatening aura from the get-go when, on her way into Point Dune, Arletty makes a nighttime pitstop at a gas station and observes the attendant firing a pistol into the surrounding darkness. It’s far too dim to see what, if anything, the guy is trying to hit, but it’s immediately understood that something is gravely amiss in this Californian locale. In rural Ohio, where I’m originally from, this isn’t actually that unusual. It is not in the least bit abnormal to see a middle-aged man named Denny shooting a 12-gauge rifle at a perfectly harmless gopher or hedgehog while onlookers spectate indifferently. That’s red meat Ohio, I guess. But what has this gas station attendant so startled is no mere medium-sized woodland rodent, that’s clear—and yet he doesn’t seem that alarmed? Almost as if the situation is slowly becoming normalized, like how a dogmatic system will skillfully encroach upon a society and impose its customs on an unsuspecting populace.
As Arletty, Marianna Hill delivers an ethereal performance. In a way, she sort of glides through this story; she possesses a near-ghostly presence. So, on the one hand, I understand why some naysayers claim there’s nothing special about Hill’s acting in this one. But I disagree, given the material itself. Messiah of Evil itself is a mood: it’s evocative indie arthouse horror examining the nature of evil and its obtrusiveness. Ergo, Marianna Hill functions within it wonderfully because her approach matches the style of the movie. In its telling, this is a vibey, macabre effort that works when viewed as a whole; the individual jigsaw pieces might seem dubious, but the ultimate rendering created when they fit together sticks. The film may not be everyone’s cup of tea—in fact it is certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea—but for me Messiah of Evil is a fabulous artifact from that unique era of cynical 1970s horror of paranoia, and I found it to be worthy of my time.
